Published By: Chef KwameAfter spending half the day in bed catching up on some Grey's Anatomy, I got a call from a fellow chef inviting me for late lunch at this new Japanese Restaurant Called ORA. So I decided to do little research about the place. Interesting, I must say.... ORA had'nt even opened it doors and yet it was already a hit on instagram and the rest of the Kuwait social media community. But that was not what I wanted to know though. As a Chef myself, when a new place opens, I'm more interested in the people behind the scenes than the name, but thats a story for another day ;-) The Food and DrinksFast forward, we get there... And I must say myself, I was sold from the moment we entered the door. The dining area was spacious, clean, and very welcoming to say the least. We had a look at the menu and it had more lots of beatiful dishes to choose, from Cold Tapas, Hot Tapas, Salads, Sigiture Sushi Rolls, Donburi's ( A Japanese "rice bowl dish" consisting of fish, meat, vegetables or other ingredients simmered together and served over rice), Dessert and finally Fresh Mocktails.... So in the blistering heat, I decided to kick things off with their Ginger & Lemon Ice Tea From Hot Tapas I had the Tiger Creamy Shrimp. Signature Sushi Rolls we tried the ORA Crispy Roll Crispy Rice with Tuna Robata Grilled Lobster Aslo tried thier Fresh Water Melon Juice Cinnamon Bred Pudding (My flavourate*****) and Homemade Ice Cream My Thoughts....The place is beautiful! From the fresh flowers on the table, to the chilled out music playing in the background and the wierd but awesome art piece they have mounted on the wall. You can't help not notice such things. The food as well is on its own level... Nothing out of the ordinary for me but definately something to try out when you are craving for something new and fresh. I must warn you though, the place is a bit pricey and some of the portions are a bit below par.
Other than that I liked the place on a once off basis. So i'm giving ORA a 4* seal of approval. Want to try it out? Swing by at Arabella Mall and check the place out
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![]() Choux pastry is a great recipe to have in you cooking arsenal, it is a versatile product that can be used for sweet and savoury dishes. Depending on your piping capability you will be able to pipe eclairs, profiteroles, choux buns and even choux pretzels. Making classic pastries such as Croquembouche, St. Honore, éclaires, Choux Swans and Paris-brest. If you are more of a savoury person, use all of the classics and use them in savoury applications. For example instead of filling the profiteroles with creme patisserie, use a fulling of cream cheese, smoked salmon and dill. Or use the St. Honore as a base for your next sautéed Mushroom medley with fresh ribbons of baby asparagus and a mushroom stock Veloute. Or the next time you want to make your own gnocchi, you will be able to make your own Choux pastry. Choux pastry truly has an endless amount of uses that can make your next dinner party that bit more Extraordinary. Recipe
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![]() I enjoy having fresh clean foods while I watch Rugby or football games. My favourite snack to make must be "Nachos", I simply love the simplicity of nachos and how incredibly easy it is to quickly whip up. The main things that attract me to this dish is the use of completely fresh and clean ingredients. But people seem to rather go out and buy the salsa and guacamole ready made from the store, which I do not under stand. Firstly the guacamole has this unpleasant green color that I've never seen when I make my own. Then when it comes to the salsa, the ingredients simply don't have the crunchy juicy texture they had when they were made. But today with this recipe I hope I can inspire people to rather make all of this at home. So they can enjoy this wonderful dish the way it was ment too. . . Fresh! I have decide to give you a recipe for the traditional salsa and then another recipe which makes use of mango as the main component. The mango salsa is perfect for beautifully grilled salmon or even as a condiment for a spicy curry. Traditional Salsa Ingredients
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I will be posting a recipe for home made corn nacho chips and guacamole soon so keep an eye out for that. ![]() Today I have decided to keep it simple with a easy home made chili oil. It does how ever take a bit of time, but at least you don't have to stand over it the entire time. Its also a very small ingredients list as well as amount of steps in the method. Some people choose to simply use this oil for a colourful decoration and some for actually enhancing the entire dish. There are plenty of ways to play around with this easy to make and long lasting oil. You can choose to incorporate more of a complex flavour profile by adding different spices, one really nice one for me is the Rosemary oil and mint combination for drizzling over roasted leg of lamb. As I mentioned earlier, this is a product that you can easily store in a air tight bottle or container and it will last you a good 8-12 months. As for what oil is the best to use when making your own flavoured infused oil, it should be a tasteless oil with little to no taste of its own. Some of the oils I would recommend include a good quality sunflower seed oil, canola oil or a good quality vegetable oil. While doing this you might also want to make use of you thermometer to ensure that your oil does not get too hot,other wise the ingredients will burn and you will be left with a bitter tasting oil. Ingredients
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![]() This is one of the simplest prepared sauces which you can prepare in under 3 minutes. The word Meuniere translates literally to "miller's wife". Meuniere also refers to both a sauce and a cooking method used mostly for delicate fish. The cooking method is when you dredge the fillet of fish in seasoned flour. The reason for this it to protect the fish due to its delicate nature. Later on I will post a great fish Meuniere recipe with french style mint peas but today I'm going to show you how to make just the sauce. The reason I love this sauce is because it's sharp and refreshing due to the lemon juice, and is also silky smooth and velvety from the butter. The salty cured capers also add a lovely dimension to the sauce which would otherwise make the sauce flat if not incorporated. This is going to be my last post from South Africa. My next post will be when I'm in Kuwait and starting my next culinary journey in the local cuisine as well as in Japanese cuisine! I'm very excited and eager to share it with all of you. Ingredients
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Edited by: Monique Boaventura ![]() Potatoes and onions are two ingredients which don't always get the respect they deserve. These two ingredients are almost always the basis of most dishes. The potatoes are used as the starch component on the plate, which serves as the delivery and bulking component of the dish. The onion being the base of most sauces out there, forming the foundation of the sauce, and we all know if you don't have a good foundation, you're going to run into trouble later on. So I decided to make these two the working horse of the kitchen and the stars of the dish today. Using only a few herbs to add a bit of flare and a dash of wine and cream for a bit of body. This is a great hearty dish, perfect for a cold summers day. I've also paired the soup with the crunchy element of potato tuile's, to add a different texture and colour to the plate. For the garnishes I've used a sprig of Rosemary and some Oregano flowers just to bring a bit of green to the party. Some chopped chives or even spring onions sprinkled over the top would also do wonders to the presentation of the dish. Ingredients
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Edited by: Monique Boaventura ![]() So this is another one of my own inventions, and I had to bake about 8 breads before I got all my ingredient percentages right in order to get the desired consistency in my final product. All the Rye breads I've bought all seemed to be the same, they were all very heavy and dense. I personally don't like having rye bread like that, I would have preferred it to be a bit more aerated with a nice crisp crust. So I took it upon myself to make the kind of rye bread I would enjoy having. But lets first talk a bit about the main things that make rye flour different to that of normal white flour. The two main components which jump out to me is the flavour profile as well as the significantly lower gluten content. The flavour of rye flour is much more prominent than that of white flour, thus rye seeds are also used to make whisky, vodka and even beers. The significantly reduced amount of gluten has a huge effect on the elasticity of the dough, it doesn't allow stretching and instead breaks. You will see when working with rye flour it resembles something more to that of a thick paste than dough. This makes it difficult to work with when your making your bread. Unlike when using white flour where the dough becomes stretched and strengthens when you knead it, rye flour simply does not strengthens at all. This causes a lot of people to add loads of white flour when they make their rye bread, which changes the ratios completely, meaning they won't get what the recipe intended at the end product. Making bread is a science, so when you make this recipe keep in mind not to add loads of white flour, simply combine all your ingredients as directed in the method and work it till everything is well incorporated. Another very important aspect to remember when baking bread and intending to increase the volume of bread is that you can't just simply double or triple all the ingredients. Each ingredient is given a percentage of the complete dough, and to ensure you get what the recipe intended you need to adhere to those percentages. If you just double or triple the ingredients, you will not have the correct consistency. This will leave you with a dough that is either over hydrated or under hydrated, and in return you will add more or less flour than what was intended. You will have noticed that in the final product your dough is very dense, is not well aerated or is even under baked because of this. I will be posting 2 pictures of examples where I increased the original recipe to 3.6kg. If you do not understand what I have done to get the new amounts simply leave a comment and I will be glad to help you out. I will discuss this topic at length on one of my other posts in the near future. In this recipe I've made use of a Poolish method (which is a loose preferment) to gain two different advantages from it, this being increased flavour and gluten development. When you make a preferment, you allow for the yeast and the flour to create a more intense flavour profile. I have also used a small amount of whole wheat flour in the recipe, and made use of the little amount of gluten in there to create some sort of a stretch in the final dough, thus by using it in the preferment I'm allow it to form gluten. Note: The ingredients used in the Poolish method are not extra but instead are from the overall ingredients. Please don't use separate ingredient for the Poolish method. Ingredients Overall amount
Poolish Method (these amount are to be taken from the overall amount)
Poolish Method
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Edited by: Monique Boaventura ![]() This sauce can be made and used with many different proteins or stir-fry dishes. It's a very simple and easy recipe to follow, and can be stored in the fridge for 1-2 weeks (ensuring the container which is being used is properly sterilised). For the wine I used a good quality Merlot, it has a lower tannin count than other more full bodied red wines such as Cabernet or Sauvignon. The tannin in wines are what give the wine the bitter and woody puckering sensation. With less tannin in the Merlot, it allows for the fruity essence of the wine to be more present, making it perfect for the sauce. Ingredients
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Edited by: Monique Boaventura ![]() This is a simple, quick and easy recipe to follow. It's healthy and packed with lean protein. This is something I would personally cook for myself when at home as it tastes amazing. I will also be posting the recipe for the plum sauce tomorrow or later this evening. This recipe is suitable for one portion, simply double or triple it accordingly. Ingredients
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www.chefdewet.co.za Twitter: @ChefDewetV Edited by: Monique Boaventura ![]() This recipe I'm posting today is a traditional one, with no fancy extra ingredients that will win you the "Checkers Boerewors of the Year". But feel free to start off with this as a foundation and play around with it, make it your own. Every weekend in South Africa, hundreds and thousands of families partake in what we call the "Braai", to others it is known as the BBQ. This is a good time for us as it's a time where families and friends get to relax with a ice cold beer, my favourite's being Black label and Castle Light, and enjoy good food as well a big screen in the outdoor lapa or stoep (veranda) watching a good rugby game. The gentlemen would stand around the braai where every single one of them will check the meat (they can't help it) and the ladies would be busy in the kitchen making potato salad, beetroot salad and mielie pap. Once all the food is cooked and ready to be eaten, its all laid out on a big table where everyone can help themselves. It's when everyone all comes together and talks about anything and everything. And by this time they have had a few and the conversation is flowing and everyone's just having a great time! Braai is a really big thing here in South Africa, we have a national Braai Day as well as a song just for Braai Day, I'll place a link at the bottom for the song. Recipe
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Edited by: Monique Boaventura |
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July 2017
AuthorI'm a chef at heart and by trade, enjoy what I do and have a passion for the culinary world. |